Buber’s had a lasting effect on me. And Heschel…. Never heard of him. Any books of his that you recommend? As far as Catholic ethics go I really think the church has gone away from the eudaemonistic model (i.e. virtue ethics). I mean just look at the problems amongst the clergy. There is no virtue.



I think you make a healthy criticism. I really like that line; “A teaching for dying in the monastery but not for living amongst strangers.”

Ahh I see. What exactly are you referring to though? My religious convictions? Because believe me when I tell you I’m not going to cry if you’re a critic of religion. Every religion should be self-critical. Unfortunately this isn’t the case in many circles! I recently heard a sermon by Franklin Graham and I dunno. Pastors like him make me question the validity of some churches.

Wait in a different thread I made up about my favorite theologians and philosophers of religion you mentioned Martin Kavka‘s book. Tough to keep track of people on here, haha. I have yet to get into Kavka but would you happen to have any thoughts on Martin Buber?

Where do you think I’m going? I’m honestly curious. Sorry if I came off a tad short in my prior response to you, btw. I can never tell people’s emotions over chats like this.

Was responding to the start of your initial response. Didn’t mean to send the whole thing right away. My point was that even if you don’t adhere to a Christian system there are other systems that we can use to actualize our values and eastern philosophy just so happens to be a broad way of doing so. What I’d really like to discuss is your statement about society being just as sick as other periods of history. I think you’re 100% on point. Not to sound pessimistic but as you say human beings are innately flawed and yes we do attempt to try and fix everything. In all honesty, and this may take away from the entire thread, sometimes I think it’s best if we stay out of things. Attempting to cure a sick society, though? Thus may in fact be impossible. My whole rant about St. Benedict’s conversio morum I think is a good starting point. But is it really practical? It’s practical for me individually I can tell you that right now. I think seeking to better oneself and having dialogue with opposing views is important. But maybe this isn’t universally practical. In fact I don’t think it can be.

Mayhap there is a solution to solving this problem but I really don’t know what it is. All I can provide is an opinion.

I come from a largely western philosophical background so I am forced to use a terminology built on this. I could in theory use a terminology steeped in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Indian thought to describe the same issues. However, not being an expert on these, I don’t want to cause confusion. But maybe I can try to summarize what I gather from some eastern philosophies.

Daoism: The spiritual is greater than the material and the government stays out of the peoples private lives. Emphasis on unconditional love.

Confucianism: Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want done to yourself, respect your fellow man and love others unconditionally.

Mohism: The benevolent leader strives to do good for the whole of society, unconditional love.

Legalism: Whatever action is practical is the right course of action to better serve society.

Buddhism: Stop living in ignorance. Learn to control the emotions (this is at least what I get from philosophical Buddhism; I think of it as a cousin to Stoicism).

Vedantism: Like Daoism, the spiritual is greater than the material. Realize your true nature as being one with God.

Jainism: Love others unconditionally and practice non-violence.

Yangism: Strive to serve your own individual self interests but don’t stray from acting in accordance with virtue.

These are of course just my thoughts; I didn’t mention Zen because I am not at all qualified to discuss it. But in my own reading I see it as similar to existentialism and phenomenology.

Concerning capitalism yes, I think it does to an extent. It is not without criticism; you’d be surprised how many people I see in my profession sit back and get paid to do absolutely nothing. It isn’t right. There’s an old phrase that comes from the New Testament: “He who does not work shall not eat.” Harsh, isn’t it? This is two sided. Capitalism keeps us all running but then you have people who simply sit there and get paid and honestly don’t deserve to get paid. Not to mention that we have career politicians who practically abuse the system and make millions. I tend to downplay critical theory but I just started reading Herbert Marcuse today and he definitely has valid points.

Concerning change I mean a change in the individual. I really think that before someone can go out and constantly protest he need’s to examine himself first; this isn’t the civil rights era anymore where it was justified to protest racial inequality. Of course this doesn’t mean someone can’t protest, it’s his right to. He simply needs to rationalize why and I strongly believe that some people haven’t done that yet when they go out and excess their freedom of speech. This is both left wingers and right wingers.

I don’t think I’m interfering with anything. Just having honest discussion because topics like this keep me intellectually stimulated. I’m a pretty open minded person.

And “the other shoe” would be what?

Exactly my point. A lot of my criticisms of modern philosophies surrounding Marxism and “wokeness” stem from my experience as a Marxist. When I became a committed Christian (and no I don’t mean joined someone hippy dip evangelical church, I was raised Irish Catholic) I realized that the only way to combat a spiritually sick society is via an interior change in the person, the Benedictine conversio morum. However some people aren’t so easily convinced. That’s why dialogue is important.

I see your point; the existentialists and phenomenologists discuss subjectivity a lot. To keep the emphasis on human beings for the sake of the discussion, Merton believed that there exists what he called “monastic therapy.” In the same paper stated in my post prior he writes the following:

“Adam of Perseigne has the idea that you come to the monastery, first, to be cured. The period of monastic formation is a period of cure, of convalescence. When one makes one’s profession, one has passed through convalescence and is ready to begin to be educated in a new way— the education of the ‘new man.’ The whole purpose of the monastic life is to teach men to live by love. The simple formula, which was so popular in the West, was the Augustinian formula of the translation from cupiditas into caritas, of self-centered love into an outgoing, other-centered love. In the process of this change the individual ego was seen to be illusory and dissolved itself, and in place of this self-centered ego came the Christian person, who was no longer just the individual but was Christ dwelling in each one. So in each one of us the Christian person is that which is fully open to all other persons, because ultimately all other persons are Christ.“

Thought this was interesting. I think to see oneself as a person only makes sense unless it is understood via grace.

Although not a typical philosopher I like to think the Trappist monk and author Thomas Merton, who I must say has left a lasting impression on me, got it right. In New Seeds of Contemplation he writes “Instead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed - but hate these things in yourself, not in another.” He kind of represented a different way of thinking during the 60’s; he wasn’t for the destruction of cites (the extremism of rioting), he commended and supported peaceful protest (e.g. MLK with the march on Washington) but I still personally think he found it insufficient, and was critical of the bohemian freethinking libertarian types (such as Alan Watts who has also made an impression on me but whatever Watts said Merton said it better). Merton seemed to believe that writing and indeed a life of contemplation and solitude could interestingly enough change the world for the better like all the other three groups believed that they were doing. In his last lecture titled “Marxism from a Monastic Perspective” (sometimes published as “Marxist Theory and Monastic Theoria”) he writes the following:

“I think we should say that there has to be a dialectic between world refusal and world acceptance. The world refusal of the monk is something that also looks toward an acceptance of a world that is open to change. In other words, the world refusal of the monk is in view of his desire for change. This puts the monk on the same plane with the Marxist, because the Marxist directs a dialectical critique of social structures toward the end of revolutionary change. The difference between the monk and the Marxist is fundamental insofar as the Marxist view of change is oriented to the change of substructures, economic substructures, and the monk is seeking to change man’s consciousness… The idea of alienation is basically Marxist, and what it means is that man living under certain economic conditions is no longer in possession of the fruits of his life. His life is not his. It is lived according to conditions determined by somebody else. I would say that on this particular point, which is very important indeed in the early Marx, you have a basically Christian idea. Christianity is against alienation. Christianity revolts against an alienated life. The whole New Testament is, in fact—and can be read by a Marxist-oriented mind as—a protest against religious alienation. St. Paul is without a doubt one of the greatest attackers of religious alienation. Alienation is the theme of the Epistle to the Romans and the Epistle to the Galatians, and it is something worth knowing about… When you stop and think a little bit about St. Benedict’s concept of conversio morum [literally a change of one’s behavior or perhaps more accurately a conversion of life], that most mysterious of our vows, which is actually the most essential, I believe, it can be interpreted as a commitment to total inner transformation of one sort or another—a commitment to become a completely new man.”

In the full lecture he goes on to briefly try and breakdown the main thesis of the critical theorist Herbert Marcuse’s book One-Dimensional Man (which I have never read). Merton basically suggests that the thesis of the book points to two variations of totalitarianism, a kind that is violent and nasty and another kind that is overly compassionate. Both these forms of totalitarianism he believes, and I likewise believe, have the potential to be combated when man undergoes this Benedictine idea of conversio morum; biblically this could be termed “repentance” or “conversion” (coming from Greek metanoia, “to have a change of heart”).

Of course, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy said it first but I can’t help but quote him. If we really want to change the world then I think we need to start with a change in our own hearts first. This too, is what what communists and fascists get completely wrong.

If we’re defining Neo-Scholasticism as the revival of medieval Christian philosophy then I personally don’t see a problem with it; I’m currently writing my thesis on St. Thomas Aquinas in comparison to Soren Kierkegaard. Neo-Thomism, however, I take issue with. I can’t stand philosophers from this framework who argue from the perspective of “If St. Thomas and the Vatican don’t consign your statement then your statement is false.” This is a limiting tradition that mocks what Thomism is all about. I’m not a Thomist, however; I don’t believe that we can know God’s essence but we can know Him via His energies (i.e. Palamism).



I love Avicenna. There’s so many others that I could’ve listed but if I did that I’d be typing all day. I recently read a fascinating article about Avicenna and medieval Franciscans on the concept of beauty. Don’t know if I can attach pdf’s on here but I’ll play around and attempt to send it.

I like to think that I am a Roman Catholic by denominational preference but an Eastern Orthodox Christian at heart. We of course have Byzantine rite churches in Catholicism and I’ve considered “switching” my rite (yes it is possible). Most Byzantine churches and Eastern Catholic churches in general act exactly like Orthodox churches: married priests, slightly different theology (more therapeutic than legalistic), different liturgy, an emphasis on the Church Fathers, and so on. The process seems to be pretty simple. You attend a Byzantine parish for 6 months to a year then write a letter to your bishop asking to switch. Of course you can’t write a hate letter about why the Roman Church is so messed up. That’s automatic rejection. One could just say “Go be Orthodox” but I don’t feel that I want to abandon my Catholic roots entirely. Still thinking on it but hopefully discerning this will cure me of a lot of anger that I have had built up towards the ”Latin” end of the church for a number of years despite my own personal piety.

While I totally understand your point I tend to like JPII because of his personalism, the belief that man is a unique being in the universe that has every right to be an individual. You must understand that his position regarding homosexuality was very liberal for the day; the pope’s prior to him didn’t bother preaching that gay people should be treated with compassion. People left the church because of JPII’s very true statement. As far as women clergy go I personally don’t care if the church did allow this. Before that happens we need to drop the clerical celibacy nonsense. This does not mean that a priest doesn’t have the right to be celibate it’s just that the Vatican mandates it and that’s something I just think is a problem. It should be a persons choice.

Ahhh, yes. I’ve heard of the book but never bothered to read it. I’ll have to look into it!

Forgot to mention that I like Levinas. And Kafka’s The Trial is a great book.

I should say Kant’s transcendental theology. People seemed to be more interested in Kant for his ethical writings because that’s the brunt of his work. Hegel just so happened to gather a larger following because his work was extensive on religion. Kierkegaard wrote all about religion; he saw himself as a writer attempting to reintroduce Christianity into a culture that was rejecting it.

I’ll keep your words in mind. You make a good point. I work for the public school system already and thankfully the school I’m at currently is vocational; respectful students that seem somewhat engaged in the work. The emphasis however is on getting them set with a career after they graduate.

I see your point but maybe save this for higher education. I’d rather students get into people like Marcus Aurelius because it teaches them how to have a stiff upper lip. Dostoyevsky I think would be good for them once you get past all the difficult Russian names.

I’ll definitely keep this as advice for the future! What subject(s) did you teach?

The way I see it subjective atheism isn’t a bad thing; there are many good arguments to be an atheist. Collective atheism is truly the bad idea. In some countries, notably the memory of the USSR and Maoist China, collective atheism ran the show. If one professed faith in Christianity, Judaism, or adhered to the “Three Teachings” of China (i.e. Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism) one could be thrown in prison. I’m sure that if one professed a subtle deism where God was just the “maker and winder of the clock” he too would face the same punishment. I personally find the transcendental argument to be appealing, which goes something like this:

1. God is a necessary precondition for logic and morality (because these are immaterial, yet real universals).

2. People depend upon logic and morality, showing that they depend upon the universal, immaterial, and abstract realities which could not exist in a materialist universe but presupposes (presumes) the existence of an immaterial and absolute God.

3. Therefore, God exists. If He didn't, we could not rely upon logic, reason, morality, and other absolute universals (which are required and assumed to live in this universe, let alone to debate), and could not exist in a materialist universe where there are no absolute standards or an absolute Lawgiver.

St. Thomas Aquinas put emphasis on the transcendentals, the properties that make up reality. Although there are more he focused on three in particular: truth, goodness, and beauty. I believe that these three point to the existence of God but also points to man being a spiritual creature; we have the capacity to know the truth, we have the ability to do the good, and we can know what is intrinsically beautiful. In my opinion this triad of transcendentals points to why I personally believe Christianity is true. Other religions carry truth and goodness but beauty is absent and by this I do not mean religions are not aesthetically pleasing. Buddhist prayers are beautiful as well as the Islamic call to prayer and Jewish temple services. When I say they lack beauty I mean that they lack it as a property of reality, of being. The doctrine of the Incarnation, when God via his kenosis (self-emptying) becomes man in the person of Christ, shows us a God that truly experiences the human condition. Therefore, the resurrection of Christ also points to what is truly beautiful. This, of course, is just my opinion and is not meant to insult.

I generally am a tad cagey about the historicity surrounding events like the stigmata; in none of the private writings of St. Francis does he mention having it. Perhaps St. Francis had dream where this was revealed to him but as far as a physical stigmata goes I’m a skeptic. Regardless, the passage from Bonaventure is very important because it reveals something about the human condition: we all long for the Absolute (not to get too Hegelian).

To try and respond to your question about Arnobius (I’m still reading Blumenberg) what he seems to be saying is that the longing for transcendence, to feel a union or a connection with God, is completely natural and we find this in both religious people and non-religious people. The difference is that religious people are conscious of this while non-religious people are not. Charles Darwin, for example, was not deeply invested in organized religion but he had a belief in philosophical theism. Arnobius from what I’ve read believed in God and professed himself a Christian but seemed to think outside the box. To reference Blumenberg again:

“For Arnobius, immortality becomes the sum of what can be gained, in Christianity, as an addition to man's mortal nature. Arnobius works with an anthropo­logical minimum. He is a kind of Christian Epicurean. His cave man corresponds to Lucretius's original man, before he strayed into cul­ture: provided by nature with meager nourishment and constantly in flight from nature's dangers, and consequently without an upward glance at the heavens, and without the corresponding idle affects of amazement and fear. Arnobius betrays no horror at the outcome of this thought experi­ment. On the contrary, he has a sort of pre-Rousseauvian sympathy for his figure's insensitivity toward the world's seductive magnifi­cence, which could only seduce him into superfluity. For man is a creature of superfluity, a superfluous creature in a world-constitution that is finished and complete without him. This ‘animal supervacuum’ [superfluous creature] is a kind of practical joke played on God's work by unknown heavenly courtiers, so that man has no part in the legitimation of the creation, does not bring with him and cannot find any relation to it, but instead finally has to be extracted from it by a pure act of grace. From the same basic idea of man's 'surplus' status as the last mem­ber of the Creation, Pico della Mirandola was to draw, more than a millennium later, the conclusion of the ‘dignitas hominis’ [dignity of man]: freedom for self-definition and for the continual change of his point of view in contemplating the world. For the Renaissance phi­losopher man will no longer need validation by the world's quality of order; for Arnobius, man's worldlessness is still his absolute neediness.”

I think that Arnobius was attempting to criticize Gnosticism because of its emphasis on man being the creation of the Demiurge (the “trickster”) but at the same time critique contemporaries of his. No doubt he was controversial with his “Christianized Epicureanism” but Erasmus during the Renaissance also was influenced by Epicurean thought, something that would’ve been a taboo in the Middle Ages as the Papal States believed that Epicurus did not believe that the soul left the body and because of his agnosticism was condemned (and placed in the 6th circle of Hell in Dante’s Inferno). Gnosticism eventually went away and has made an attempt at revival specifically beginning in the 60’s; Timothy Leary (I’m sure we’ve all heard of him), a native to my hometown, went on to found the “League for Spiritual Discovery.” They based everything off of a Catholic mass but instead of giving communion with bread and wine they would give tabs of LSD instead, also claiming that the gospel writers were advocating everyone to “trip out” and use psychedelic drugs, and added the Gnostic texts into the biblical canon unofficially. The big one was the Gospel of Thomas which I personally don’t think is Gnostic at all.

I think I better understand the authors point. However could not the “Christian humanism” that rose during the Renaissance be a kind of spiritual humanism? I mean many forget that the first humanists were Christians inspired by the scholastic’s of the Middle Ages. I do know that there is a school of thought that tends to downplay the pursuits of people like Pico della Mirandola or Lorenzo Valla who both sought to synthesize the old school ways of thinking (Platonism, Aristotelianism, the budding Thomist movement, certain thinkers within Judaism and Islam) in a pre-modern context. Many history professors wrongly label the Renaissance the beginnings of the age of secularism and the Enlightenment has the actualized age of secularism and I’ve never been at home with either of approaches.

Well let’s be honest. If St. Thomas came to the conclusion that the geocentric theory was false and that the heliocentric theory was true this would’ve made philosophy very different for the centuries that followed. There would be no “conflict” between science and religion like there is now. I’m of the opinion that there shouldn’t be a conflict between the two anyway but there are some things which naturally just are and this is what the theologian and philosopher need to sit down and discuss.

Interesting read. After thinking this over for the past week I like to think that the Renaissance was definitely a continuation of certain ideas that Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Scholasticism shared but there definitely was a shift in some ideas. I largely attribute this to Copernicus with his scientific discoveries. So I can’t say I’m for either thesis, be it continuity or conflict. The Renaissance in my opinion seems to be something unique altogether.

Well I am still a believer in the fact that Jesus understood Greek at least a little bit. It is well documented that Koine Greek was popular in his day. Aramaic just so happened to be his native tongue. So yes I do believe Jesus gave his lectures in Aramaic. When it comes to “Take and eat” it really depends on the theology behind it. Catholicism teaches transubstantiation, the belief that the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Christ. This not only defies modern science but also defies Aristotelian natural philosophy. This being said I’ve never believed in it. If one were to believe that the real presence of Christ was in the heart of the believer receiving communion then I would not have a problem with this as this is something I believe; “transignification” is what this tends to be called and it is very close to how High Church Protestants view it.

I agree, they seem to be particularly open to Marxism, Atheism, and Islam. Though not necessarily in that order .... — Apollodorus

I originally adhered to Marxism and dubbed myself a staunch atheist early in college but soon discarded these beliefs. I think Marx got a few things right but the solution to the problem is what makes me criticize Classical Marxism. Marxist humanism attempts to rectify the problem by stripping Marxism of economic terminology to focus more on everyday problems but this too did not impress me. As far as my faith goes, believe me, I am at odds with some of the things in Catholicism; I like to say I’m culturally Roman Catholic but sympathetic to Eastern Orthodoxy. If Traditionalist Roman Catholics and Evangelicals were open to biblical studies I think they would have no problem being reasonable people while also practicing their faith. This, of course, does not mean that every Traditionalist and Evangelical is against biblical studies. I’m sure it is only a select group.

I work mainly with high schoolers but for elementary school topics like the Golden Rule and perhaps a simpler version of the trolley problem could be taught. With high schoolers I would mainly focus on the basics of Aristotelian, Stoic, and Kantian ethics. As I said I think Meditations is a very important book for young people; should be required reading in high schools.

Very true. The problem with the prolonged after effects of Vatican II is that a certain faction of Catholics seem to put down tradition. I’m not saying return to saying everything in Latin and return to women covering their heads in church but people seem to favor a more charismatic form of worship that, in quite honesty, has never been right for me. Not that it isn’t right at all I just feel more at home with a more ancient style of praxis. Then again, you find groups that are of a more “traditional type” that label every pope since Paul VI to be heretics. That also doesn’t exactly fly with me.

I think it’s time we all reconsider Eriugena, then. Pope Benedict XVI gave an address years ago praising his thought.

I think what he meant by things not created is God, as classical theism states God cannot be created. But I’m just speculating. What I know of Eriugena is from presentations and secondary books. I just started reading the Periphyseon.

I’ve considered Orthodoxy over the years, maybe someday. They tended to respect Greek thought long before people like Anselm and Aquinas showed up. It’s not that I don’t like Catholicism it’s just that I think there needs to be room for improvement within its ecclesiastical hierarchy. Theologically many modern Catholics are very open to other theological positions in my experience.

What's the date? How many crosses are in the sky? How many people will call on Jesus for help today, or feel love for him, or quote him, or claim they know him personally? Not bad for "just another Jew". — Joe Mello

I see your point and this is exactly what I think the issue is. I see myself as a devout Christian who believes that through the study of the Jesus of history we can draw closer to the Christ of faith. I like to say that we need to separate the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith and find a balance between the two. One can believe in a historical Jesus and still be a devout Christian.

I think you had mentioned in a prior post that you were a Franciscan friar. I myself considered the Trappists or Dominicans at one time but my stance on this has changed. Christianity is the largest religion in the world for good reason; despite the corruptions and scandals that have gone on in Western Christendom there is a beauty in the traditions of it. There needs to be dialogue between Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodoxy as well as dialogue with biblical scholars and ancient historians.

Very important idea in intellectual history. I wonder if the church will ever absolve Eriugena’s condemnation.

Would Spinoza have read Eriugena? I can definitely see the similarities between the two. A lot of Orthodox Christian philosophers and theologians definitely respect him. From OrthodoxWiki:

“His masterpiece, the Periphyseon, attempted a synthesis between Latin and Greek Fathers on issues of cosmology and soteriology. Long labeled a heretic and pantheist or proto-Scholastic by Roman Catholic scholars, and kept out of the community of patristic writers by 20th-century scholars of the Orthodox diaspora, more recent studies have recognized his alleged heresy and eccentricity in the West as a reflection of his likely early Irish monastic educational background combined with his involvement with the Greek Fathers. His approach recently has been called one of ‘energeia entis,’ a focus on the ‘energy of being,’ an experiential sense of noetic life rooted in Orthodoxy, rather than the later Roman Catholic Scholastic ‘analogia entis,’ or emphasis on Creation as a conceptualizable analogy to the divine. His definition of Nature as a mystery incorporating ‘that which is’ and ‘that which is not’ highlights what has been described as his iconographic view of Creation, in a theophanic cosmology paralleling Orthodox teachings on the uncreated energies of God… Eriugena's Periphyseon today is considered by some both the last great Orthodox writing of the medieval West and also the last great work of ancient philosophy in Latin, and as a potential non-modern Christian bridge between the contemporary West and Orthodox intellectual life. His persona lingers on in perhaps the best joke to survive from the Latin Early Middle Ages.”

The Celts definitely have a different understanding of Christianity. The Gregorian Reforms in the eleventh century as I understand did not reach Ireland and the rest of the British Isles until much later. When you look at the division of Christianity in that part of the world there is definitely a much older feel. We here in the States in my opinion have a hard time comprehending that.

“Eriugena” is generally how it is spelt. “Scotus” meant “Gael” as in one who comes from the Gaelic culture originating out of Ireland. His full name would mean something like “John the Gael born in Éire” (Éire being Gaelic for Ireland). Honorius III accused him of pantheism, the belief that God and the universe are one in the same entity. If you know anything about the intellectual history of Dark Age Europe then you know that whenever someone got accused of this it generally was an ad ignorantiam regarding their work so this is why. Prior to this Eriugena was criticized at the Fourth Council of Valence in 855, his work getting called “Irish porridge.” Eriugena for all intents and purposes was an Orthodox Christian; there was no Roman Catholic Church yet and Orthodoxy seems to me to be the most original version of Christianity. His beliefs line up with Orthodoxy very well. I’m a Catholic and enjoy my faith but I’m sympathetic to Orthodoxy (conversion right now in my life would be too big of a change). Conservative members of the papacy around this time accused Eastern Orthodoxy in particular of being full of pantheism or even polytheism. This certainly is not the case. Even St. Thomas Aquinas got condemned for a little while. Many modern philosophers have called Eriugena “The Hegel of the Ninth Century.” Now that I think of it, Hegel I believe was influenced by Eriugena to an extent.

Also thank you for the pdf of the Periphyseon. I’ve looked everywhere for this specific version and have found that it’s quite expensive.

It seems Putin advocates, if I may coin this term, “Neo-Tsarism.” He seeks a revival of Imperial Russia. My Russian history isn’t that good but I think he forgets that the Bolshevik’s executed Tsar Nicholas Romanov II and screwed up Russia so coming off as an autocratic dictator is gonna bite him in the butt. Pitting the Russian Orthodox Church and Ukrainian Orthodox who don’t want to be under Moscow against each other doesn’t help the situation either.

The term “moderate” will have to do. As much as I love Aristotle I think his political thought isn’t practical for the world today. Plato’s emphasis on the training of the philosopher-king by bettering his soul, living a life in accordance with arete, with virtue, needs to make a comeback in a modern form. Roman history shows us that we can get people like Cicero, Cato the Younger, Seneca, or Marcus Aurelius. And we can also get a Julius Caesar (I’m about to start reading his Commentaries on the Civil War).

Despite their polar opposite political approaches, they detested the position of a king.

I’m speaking generally but you’re right. You can’t be civil with tyrants. Interestingly of we go back to the study of antiquity not all tyrants were horrible. But sticking with the modern day phenomenon of fascism we cannot be civil with totalitarian regimes.

If you know anything about Hannah Arendt she called an engagement in politics the vita activa or active life; she subsequently borrowed this term from Scholasticism. If you read the quote above in the initial question the defining part stands out: “The greatest evil perpetrated is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons.” She argued that several of the Nazi’s committed atrocities because they were simply followers, true losers in all honesty. I think we ought to stop being followers and get rid of this herd mentality.